


go one more

by dryadfiona



Category: Tomb Raider & Related Fandoms, Tomb Raider (Video Games)
Genre: Archery, F/F, Pining, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 09:28:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18775486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dryadfiona/pseuds/dryadfiona
Summary: Roth takes Lara out to practice archery, Lara invites Sam, and Sam is very, very gay.





	go one more

The first and more pressing issue is that Sam's best friend is the most beautiful person she's ever seen in her entire life, ever.

The second issue is that she has no idea what she's doing.

Sam will never understand Lara's fascination with seemingly  _any_ physical activity, be it rock climbing or practicing at a gun range or balancing on a stretchy rope with other idiots on campus. But Lara's her closest friend, so when Lara invited her to come practice archery with her and her basically-dad, Roth, what was she going to do, say  _no?_ Worse came to worse, Lara could gently tease her while giving her pointers.

Or. Well. That's what Sam  _thought_ was the worse-came-to-worse option.

"You're going to pull back the string like  _this,_ see?"

"Uh-huh."

Lara has her arms  _wrapped around her_ , gently guiding her hands to the right position on the bow, and Sam is trying not to drop the damn thing, her hands are so sweaty.

Lara smells like nutmeg. That's weird, right? She knows Lara doesn't bake, the two of them live together and she made microwave mac-and-cheese for more dinners than Sam thought was survivable, but the smell is undeniable. It reminds her of the week or so after Christmas, going to Tesco's to get whatever was on sale, as if either of them really needed to save the money.

"You're standing a little--strangely. Here."

Then, to make the whole situation even  _more_ unbearable, she wraps the arm not holding Sam's hand to the string around Sam's waist.

_Wow. So this is how I die. I thought there'd be more cameras involved._

Lara gently pulls Sam back a couple steps, telling her to move her feet to shoulder-width or something. She could've said the instructions in Russian (something she could do, Sam knows it) and Sam would still have the same chance of pieceing it together.

"Sam?"

"I, uh. I don't know if archery's for me," Sam admits. "I'm having a little, um, trouble keeping up."

Lara laughs a bit, not teasing but just enjoying herself, and her breath is  _right against Sam's neck_ and Sam is not breathing at all anymore. Roth says something to Lara from a few feet away, and Lara steps back, taking the bow from Sam as she goes.

Sam exhales and inhales. She can still smell nutmeg.

"Feel free to rest against that wall, Sam," Roth says, not unkindly, and Sam does. She mostly just came to hang out, maybe look up archery terms on her phone to pretend like she knows what she's talking about and judge Lara's shots. Then, of course, Lara handed her a bow and offered to help teach her.

 _You have a way of catching me off-guard,_ Sam thinks, staring at Lara with what she  _hopes_ isn't a lovestruck expression.

Lara shrugs off her jacket, joking about some past clothing mishap to Roth, and Sam's having trouble breathing again.

She may not understand why Lara likes going outside and doing things so much, but holy  _shit,_ it's really working for her.  _Maybe I should work out,_ Sam thinks before immediately remembering that she gets out of breath climbing up the one flight to their apartment.  _Well. Maybe one day._

Lara nocks an arrow and pulls back the string. She inhales slowly, and Sam does the same as she watches. Lara shoots and Sam breaths and the arrow hits just right of the center of the target.

"Not bad, Lara!" Roth says, impressed, and Lara beams.

"Eh. You did alright," Sam says. Lara turns to look at her with a glare, and Sam concedes, "Alright, you're a better shot than I'll ever be."

Lara takes a bow (the leaning down kind, not another weapon). Roth grabs an arrow next, nocking it and firing.

He's still a slightly better shot than she is, hitting dead center of his own target, and Lara narrows her eyes.

Sam forgets, sometimes, how competitive Lara is. Whether it's eating too much of a spicy food or being at the top of her class, Lara likes to  _win_. She's never so competitive that it makes her annoying to be around, thankfully, but Sam knows they'll be here until Lara manages to do at least as well as Roth.

-

It's been several hours. Probably. Sam's phone says it's only been about fifteen minutes, but there's only so much time she can spend watching her best friend's muscles before time starts to feel like a fake concept.

She wishes she had her camera.

Lara nocks another arrow.

"Your shots seem to go a little bit right," Roth says. "Aim slightly for the left."

Even though Lara is ostensibly competing against Roth, she shifts her aim slightly, inhales, fires.

The arrow hits dead center.

"Woo! Go Lara!" Sam cheers, clapping. "You did it!"

"I did it!" Lara says, beaming. "Thanks, Roth."

"Good job, Lara," Roth says, putting an arm around her shoulder. Lara gives him a slight hug with the hand not holding the bow, still looking proudly at her achievement.

Sam's almost a little disappointed. Part of her wanted to watch Lara practicing archery...forever.

She's not the type of person to be into someone for a super long time anyway, but her crush on Lara has been going strong for years now. She thinks this might be an actual interest, not a brief infatuation because of her hair or his eyes or the other person just being taller than her. 

Lara turns to look at her with a grin, and Sam sighs, because shit, she's in this for the long haul, isn't she.

-

They go out to some shitty fast food place after, much to Roth's disappointment.

"This stuff is terrible for you," he says, holding up a fry with as much distrust in his eyes as Sam has with her final papers.

"You've eaten rats before," Lara says, face full of pizza.

"You've  _what?_ "

Roth starts a truly disgusting tale about hunting for food on an island off the coast of Australia with Lara's dad, and Sam puts her hand over her ears until Lara tells him to stop.

Sam, enjoying her own French fries that Lara and Roth both insist are chips, listens to them talk about everything under the sun. She interjects about whatever areas of history she does know about--mostly East Asian digs, because the only history she could manage to pay attention to was the stuff that related to her--but mostly lets them talk.

Even Lara's voice is nice. Sam's not even an accent person, God.

 _I just really love you,_ she thinks, looking at Lara, and nearly chokes on her food.

"Sam! Are you alright?"

She manages to spit it out, looking sadly at the rest of her food. "Yeah. What a waste of a fry though."

"Chip," Lara and Roth both correct automatically.

"Really? I almost  _died_ and you're going to be mean?"

They joke back and forth for the rest of the trip, and Sam stares at Lara the whole time.

 

 


End file.
